AACN-AONE Academic Practice Partnership Task Force
Focus group: Recording guide
April 16, 2011
NONPF Meeting
Convener: Dr Joan Stanley
Recorder: Dr Kathleen Delaney
Participants: Nelda New, Central Arkansas; Margaret Benz, St Louis University; Linda Onega,
Radford University; Joanne Miller, Rush University; Lygia Holcomb, University of AlabamaBirmingham; Sharon Lock, University of Kentucky; Karen Keslen, Georgetown University;
Susan Kelly-Weeder, Boston College; Pam Cacchione, University of Pennsylvania
Characteristics of Effective Academic Practice Partnerships
Partnership Characteristics:
Partnership addresses a mutual need, e.g., Hospital seeking magnet status has a need for faculty
who will bring research expertise, and University has a need for clinical sites.
Community site and University/School of Nursing share a similar value to service, particularly to
the underserved
Partnership is often developed from a grass roots type of faculty participation in a particular site.
Because of this initial involvement partnership is often with a site faculty want to practice at or
find rewarding. The example given here was a partnership in St Louis which began with faculty
practice at a local housing authority building. It grew to a more elaborate university-city
partnership but the faculty still maintains her connection to the original site.
Partnerships offer a mutual benefit to both parties. University may offer adjunct faculty status to
practitioners at site, site provides student placement opportunities.
Partnerships that offer student placement opportunities at all levels.
A partnership site that fits in with a faculty/department vision of where they want to take the
specialty, e.g., establishing a school based mental health site.
A partnership is truly intra disciplinary
A partnership that demonstrates outcomes which improves peoples’ lives
A formal arrangement with the city to provide needed services helps promote partnerships. Two
examples provided: One the faculty staffed the city employee health and wellness center as well
as the workman’s compensation clinic. Another faculty ran a health center for Spanish speaking
underserved. In this instance, the clinic received significant support from the university who saw
the clinic as part of their Jesuit service mission.
Note this discussion naturally focused on what factors facilitated partnerships, some of these
facilitating factors were:
1. A faculty in academic administration (such as an Associate Dean) who was risk taking, willing
to assume liability. This person is particularly helpful when they seek out faculty practice and
understand community needs. Also helpful when this person is a champion for faculty practice
2. Faculty connections within the state or city with local boards, service sites. The is particularly
useful when a solid, positive relationship exists
3. A faculty practice coordinator who is adept at finding additional funding/grants.
4. A College philosophy or strategic plan that values faculty practice and faculty contributing to
community. In line with this, the college adjusts faculty workload to allow practice time,
particularly allowing release time.
5. A faculty-practice coordinator who handles all the details and contracts of setting up
sites/partnerships, who knows the rules and regulations of practice sites/states.
6. Partnerships often play off synergy of timing, a site opportunity meshes with student
placement need, and having the right people in the right places. Examples included how
contracts were set up with VA systems, long term care facilities and the military.
7. Liability insurance being covered by university
8. Having a solid contact at agency with whom you have developed a relationship
9. A faculty- promotion tract that recognizes practice and deems it legitimate
10. Having a college expectation that to maintain appointment one must do clinical work.
11. A philosophical understanding of “what we are as a college of nursing” and what the goals of
community service mean to our mission.
Barriers to partnerships (Note of our 9 participants- 6 had healthy and numerous
community/hospital partnerships, one person had a poor system and two faculty had no ongoing
partnerships- I will deal first with faculty who had no partnerships)
No partnerships- Faculty explained that there was no vision operating at her college of nursing
about how a partnership would work. There are lots of disciplinary silos and no-one wants to
interact. There is no financial support from the university for partnerships. There are so many
colleges in the faculty area that there is seemingly no need.
No partnerships- Faculty explained they were operating under a restrictive covenant at my
University where mainly the medical school staffs all community sites- we have never gotten
faculty practice off the ground, they need to find their own practices and arrange individually.
Other barriers (from faculty who were working in partnerships)
Competition with PA programs
No support from more traditional MDs in community
Economics: State cuts meant that city had to close clinics, not renewing faculty practice
relationships
Lack of faculty time and increasing workload
No real release time for practice even though your work ergs might be lowered, the work is there
when one returns home in the evening. A faculty brought up an example of having four faculty
practice sites opening up in a new medical home, and she could not find a faculty to fill.
Did not have the time or foresight to collect any data on work/outcomes, so when the budget
tightened, her clinic was closed.
Determining exactly when IRB approval is needed.
Overcoming Barriers – What helps
Having an associate dean who tracks and advocates for faculty practice
Automated system for contracts
DNP students in sites who, to fulfill an assignment, had to start an academic partnership
Readjusted expectations for faculty work load
Getting partners to the table to dialogue about issues and problems
Identifying mutual goals and needs
Negotiating around financial benefits for site, e.g. scholarships for staff
Offering adjunct faculty status to site employees.
Getting involved in local APN organization
Identifying clearly with site: “What is in it for you?’ and helping them realize benefits.
Personal networking
A job board on our college site where we help local agencies find NPs, it helps to connect them
to us.
Interdisciplinary grants
A strategic plan that values practice.